by Rosie Thomas
They crowded around the crate.
In a nest of newspaper and bubble-wrap lay an elongated, curved oval of dark brownish-gold metal. The shield was less than three feet long. Standing proud of the curved surface they could distinguish three circular bosses of elaborate scrollwork. Some of the circles within the fluid arabesques were set with stones. Even though the piece was discoloured, dented and still crusted with earth, it was beautiful. Miranda longed to pick it up and trace the curves with the tips of her fingers. She was amazed that this exquisite object had emerged from the ground here, at Mead.
‘And there’s this too,’ Chris added.
He unwrapped another piece of cloth and placed what lay within it on the table.
It was the dark band that they had last seen in its resting place between the skeletal jaw and ribcage, an almost solid chunk of earth and metal. A short section of it had been cleaned of dirt, to reveal a heavy twisted strand that was itself made up of several smaller twisted strands. The metal was brighter than that of the shield, with a seductive glimmer to it.
There was a collective gasp.
‘My God,’ Miranda breathed. ‘Treasure.’
‘Yes. Very significant treasure,’ Chris agreed. ‘This is a pure gold torc, one of the finest I have ever seen. I’ve never come upon a find like this, not in twenty years. I know it happens, of course, but this is the first time I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I can’t quite believe my luck.’
There was an awed silence as they studied it, measuring the tiny neck span with their eyes.
‘It looks so heavy,’ Polly murmured. Chris nodded his permission and she picked it up at once, unable to keep her hands off it.
Chris said, ‘One thing we do know already. You met David, our bones expert?’
The small, eager man with thick glasses.
‘He says that our prince is almost certainly a princess.’
Miranda clapped her hands in delight.
Polly touched a finger to the metal coils, following the twists within the twist. Dust fell out of the seams of her overall and powdered the red tiles.
‘The Warrior Princess?’ she repeated. ‘How very, very satisfying.’
‘And the child?’ Colin asked.
‘A boy, probably, aged about seven. From the damage to the skull, we can see that he died from a crushing blow to the back of the head. It was so severe that he could not have survived it.’
They took that in in silence. The princess had been accompanied on her final journey by a sacrificial victim.
Chris explained that the excavation would continue under careful direction. There would probably be more grave goods, possibly other bodies to uncover.
It would take time to do the job properly, but there would be no unnecessary delays. He hoped that the significance of the discovery would be some compensation to Mr Knight for the frustrating interruption to his project.
‘Not the right kind of compensation unfortunately,’ Amos said.
Chris seemed to accept with equanimity that Amos and he were unlikely to be friends. He took a card from his wallet, and instead of handing it to Amos he put it on a corner of the dresser.
‘If Mrs Knight would like to see the finds, I can arrange that for her. And if I might just remind you once more, please don’t mention any of these discoveries outside the immediate circle.’
He took the torc back from Polly, who yielded it with reluctance. Then he said a pleasant goodnight. He carried the precious crate across the yard to the Land Rover and drove away.
Selwyn strode back to his trenches, saying that he couldn’t sit around all afternoon drinking tea. Amos gathered up the archaeologist’s card, his papers and the laptop and headed out to the cottage. Colin went upstairs, planning to sleep. He slept heavily at Mead, eagerly sinking into afternoon naps and giving himself up to long nights from which he remembered no dreams.
Left alone together Miranda and Polly performed a kitchen two-step involving the dishwasher, the cake tin, earth and dust on the floor and crumbs on the table.
‘That was extraordinary,’ Miranda breathed.
‘It was,’ Polly agreed.
When the room was in order again Polly paused at the sink with its view of the back yard and the open doors of the barn.
‘I should go back to work,’ she said.
Reluctance dragged at her. She didn’t mind a level of discomfort but she was coming close to hating the squalor of their quarters, and the damp, and the insidious cold. It might be a warm, sunny autumn afternoon outside, but indoors they worked in shadowy gloom and kept warm by layering plaster-caked jumpers under their overalls. She was starting to dream about warmth at the touch of a switch, and hot running water in her own home seemed as much of a remote luxury as piped asses’ milk, or peeled pomegranates brought to her on a silver salver.
She was getting old, she acknowledged. She was not as hardy as she used to be.
Selwyn wanted to lay the drains and complete the sub-floor so the bricklayer and the electrician could come in. He insisted he could manage the plumbing and roofing and the plastering himself, but at least he had conceded that he wasn’t qualified to do the wiring. He had even agreed, reluctantly, that it would be quicker and cheaper in the long run to employ a brickie. It had taken hours of exhausting haggling with him to achieve even this much.
In all his projects over the years, Selwyn had been single-minded. It was single-mindedness that had been his major failing, Polly reflected, because he was both physically and mentally incapable of standing back and contemplating the margins of whichever picture he was myopically painting.
The pattern was a familiar one. When he had decided that as well as making and restoring furniture he was going to grow and sell vegetables for profit, he had spent weeks double-digging the beds and carting in tons of manure. He had planted and mulched and weeded in every spare moment but when the tomatoes ripened all at once, the runners sank under the weight of beans, and lettuces bolted as soon as he turned aside from their luxurious beds, he lost all patience. The creation of the garden and bringing the crops to fruit had taken up his supply of love and attention. It was left to Polly to pick and pack the results, to drive them to farmers’ markets and implore women who had arrived in mud-free 4x4s to buy them, and finally to help Selwyn acknowledge that in order to turn a profit these would have to be the most highly-priced blowsy lettuces and oversized beans in the country.
There had been further skirmishes over the years with free-range chickens, rare breed pigs, and – worst of all – a business dedicated to sourcing country artefacts and selling them on-line to people who lived in Shoreditch.
Polly had been his ally in all these experiments and she had never had to make herself forgive him for the failures, because she loved him as he was. He was like a river in flood, the torrent of his enthusiasm carrying with it whatever lay in his path. He had never bored her, never in all their years together, and the quickness of Polly’s mind meant that she was quite easily bored.
None of these earlier projects had sucked him in like the black hole of the Mead barn, however. She had never seen him as fierce as this.
As soon as he woke up he was rolling out of his sleeping bag and hefting a sledgehammer. He worked for as long as he could keep on going, standing up to eat a sandwich or drain a mug of tea, and Polly did her best to keep up with him and restrain him. So far, between them they seemed to have achieved more destruction than progress.
In two, maybe three days’ time, he kept assuring her, they would turn the corner. Then she would notice the difference, just wait and see.
In the evenings, when she threatened him with violence if he didn’t stop, he turned to whisky, sitting and dangerously rocking the chair next to Miranda’s country kitchen range.
Polly understood that Selwyn saw the barn as his last chance to make good, after too many failed efforts.
He wanted her to have a comfortable home, he wanted to have the same himself, but the core need was to
prove that he could provide one – created with bare hands, with minimal cash, at speed and in an incandescent blaze of finely focused energy. He wanted to prove this to Miranda and the Knights and Colin, because they were so close at hand, as well as to herself and their children, and all the time it was obvious that the demonstration by these means mattered hardly at all to anyone except Selwyn himself.
She loved him as always, but now there was an exasperated tenderness in it, as if he were her wayward child rather than her husband.
There was another difference to contend with, too.
Miranda’s intention, Polly knew, was that Mead would provide insulation for all of them. Living together here would help to counteract the void left by children no longer needing them, the loneliness that followed the death of friends, and the stealthy approach of old age. What Polly hadn’t allowed for, in accepting Miranda’s proposition, was that Selwyn’s preoccupation, his mental absence from her, in their tarp tent, under conditions of such strenuous intimacy, would actually make her feel loneliness as sharp as pain. With Miranda always so close at hand, with the stirrings of jealousy that she knew she ought to be able to dismiss but somehow could not, Polly’s bruised love for Selwyn was expanding until it seemed as fragile as bread dough rising beneath a cloth.
Polly became aware now that Miranda was hesitating behind her in the warm and humming kitchen.
They had spent more time together in the last weeks than they had done since student days. They had always been friends, in the way that opposites can appreciate each other, whilst Katherine bridged the gulf between them, but lately a definite constraint had separated them.
Polly wasn’t cynical. She had invested the same hope and belief in Mead as Miranda herself, but now she was wondering whether she had been naive to do so.
She turned slowly from the window, and was not surprised to find that Miranda’s eyes had been resting on her back.
‘Don’t go straight back to the barn. Stay here for half an hour and talk to me,’ Miranda implored. She went to the larder and came back with a basket of vegetables.
The sight of the neat wicker and the burnished onions and carrots laid within ignited a blaze of irrational fury that burned behind Polly’s eyes. Under her hair the nape of her neck prickled with sweat. It was hot in the room, not merely warm. It was too organized and photogenic, an untruth like a magazine picture. No muck, no puddles of cold water, no Selwyn creating one vortex of disorder before moving on to create another in a different place.
She was suddenly jointly enraged by the thought of him and by the spectacle of Miranda serene in the heart of her house.
Miranda laid out the pretty onions and a Sabatier knife on her big chopping board on the scrubbed table.
She was saying, ‘I thought of roasting some veg for dinner. These beets look nice. We’ll all have supper together, shall we? We need to celebrate the treasure. The find’s even bigger than we thought, isn’t it?’
The knife sliced through white onion flesh. Miranda chopped and sniffed as the fumes rose. ‘Unless you and Sel have got a different plan for later?’
‘There’ll be a little soufflé for us, probably. I should think Selwyn’s lighting the gas burner this very minute,’ Polly snapped. ‘Miranda, tell me. What’s it like being Lady Bountiful all the time?’
The knife dropped with a little clatter. Miranda’s eyes opened wider. ‘I don’t mean it to seem that way.’
Polly’s fury faded as quickly as it had blazed up, leaving an empty grey space. She muttered, ‘Sorry. That was rude of me.’
‘No. I’m sorry. I really am. Forgive me.’
The apology was in the wrong place. Polly frowned as she tried to position it. She flopped down at the table opposite the chopping board.
‘Mirry, I don’t know why you’re asking me to forgive you. I’m bad-tempered. I’m exhausted, Selwyn’s driving me crazy, I hate that barn, I’m worried about the kids. None of which gives me any right to take it out on you. You’re generous and I should be grateful.’
Miranda said, ‘Gratitude doesn’t make either the giver or the recipient feel all that comfortable, does it? This set-up’s supposed to be cooperative. I sold the buildings and the land, you and Selwyn and Amos and Katherine bought them. I don’t want to be the lady of the manor. It was Jake’s house, and only mine because he died.’
She went to the fridge and took out a half-full bottle of wine. She sloshed the contents into two glasses.
‘Do you really hate the barn?’
Polly drank. ‘I hate the way Selwyn’s going at it.’
‘Why is he?’
‘Because of the way he is. Because we’ve got no money.’
‘I know, but…’
‘You don’t know. Listen. There is. No. Money. None at all.’
‘Do you want…?’
‘No, Miranda. Thanks, but no. Not from you, or Amos, or anyone else. I want to help Selwyn to make the place habitable. Just on the margins will do. Nothing fancy. I’m not imagining limed oak or recessed downlighters. Running water, flushing lavatory, watertight roof and walls. That will discharge some of his rage at himself. He’ll be able to take a breath, but not before that. You of all people should know the way he is.’
‘Yes.’ Miranda’s eyes didn’t meet hers.
‘After that I’ll get a job. Selwyn can finish the house in his own time. And all will be well,’ Polly concluded.
Miranda sliced carrots. She tipped the glowing vegetables into an earthenware dish, dripped olive oil over them and rubbed sea salt between the palms of her hands.
‘Why are you worried about the children?’
‘Ah, it’s general, not localized. They’re not ill or addicts or in trouble, as far as I know. They think we’ve gone off and left them, at least according to Omie they do. Selwyn says that’s absurd, of course. This drink’s just what I needed, by the way.’
Miranda said hesitantly, ‘Why don’t you both move into the house? Only for as long as it takes to do what you need to in the barn. You’ll be warm, the work will seem easier. Ask Omie and Alpha and Ben to come and stay whenever you want. Won’t you think about it, at least?’
Polly shook her head. ‘Selwyn can’t. Not won’t, can’t.’
The dishwasher settled into a churning rhythm. Water trickled in the pipes in the scullery. The layered sounds of the house seemed to emphasize the gulf that lay between it and the barn.
However, Polly’s face was now rounding into the noodle-lady smile. She was recovering herself. ‘It’s way beyond pride with him, it’s an act of faith. This is the way he wants to do it, therefore it’s the only way that it can be done. I left him to it for a couple of nights, didn’t I, that first week, and he made no objection, absolutely none, but I felt as though I was betraying him. He can be impossible, but we’re in this together, me and Sel. We’ve worked it out between us before, and we’ll do it this time too.’
Carefully Miranda nodded.
‘We’ll come over tonight and eat, though,’ Polly said.
‘That’s good.’
Polly drank more wine and sat back in her chair. That was enough of talking about Selwyn to Miranda. She changed the subject. ‘What about it turning out to be a princess, then?’
Miranda dusted the salt off the palms of her hands with a flourish. Here was an unequivocal symbol for both of them.
‘I love it. Don’t you? I love her. Look how she was buried in solemn state. Decked out in her gold ornaments ready for the life to come, her weapons at her side, her page to accompany her. How powerful and how revered she must have been. There’s the lady of the manor, if you want one.’
Polly thumped her fist so that the knives rattled.
‘Exactly. She’s what we need to have in mind. An Iron-Age role model. A powerful woman, the leader of her tribe, vanquished only in death. Modestly veiled by antiquity, as well. No political or despotic overtones to trouble us, except for the unfortunate page, and that was probably done by her priests.�
� She brandished her glass. ‘Here’s to the Warrior Princess of Mead, rest her glorious bones.’
They drank the toast. Polly got up, and Miranda awkwardly put out her hand.
‘We’ve got what it takes, as well,’ Miranda said.
‘I know we have,’ Polly agreed.
Remembering the ten pound penalty they didn’t give voice to it, but they were thinking the same thing.
It has been a long way. Women, and daughters, and friends. Mothers or not, wives or otherwise. We’ll go on, wherever the road takes us.
‘I feel quite emotional,’ Polly confessed. ‘Quite teary-eyed.’
‘It’s the onions,’ Miranda smiled.
The talk of the princess had emphasized a bond between them, one which circumstances might otherwise have led them to overlook.
Alpha, Omega and Ben
The three Davies children had arranged to meet in a bar close to the offices of Ben’s listings magazine.
Alexandra arrived first. She sat down at a corner table with a glass of wine and the newspaper. Olivia called her just as she took the first mouthful of her drink, and Alpha told her twin that she had only just got here and there was no sign of Ben anyway, surprise surprise, so she needn’t run all the way from the Tube station.
Five minutes later Omega burst through the door. Her hair was long whereas Alpha wore hers cropped asymmetrically short, and today Omega favoured pink tights with ribbon shoelaces and fingerless knitted gloves while Alpha was in a black skirt and a grey jersey.
Omega burst out, ‘Why didn’t you ask him to come tonight? I’ve got to meet him, haven’t I?’
‘That was never going to happen, Omie. Whatever Ben’s asked us here for is about him, and dropping Jaime into it as well would be a major complication. Wouldn’t it?’
It wasn’t only their profiles that suddenly gave away the closeness of their connection, appearing like a single face and its reflection in a mirror as they briefly kissed, but also the way they resumed a conversation apparently in mid-sentence.
Alpha gathered up the contents of Omega’s bag as they spilled out on the table and stowed them safely away for her while Omega scanned the drinks menu and tried to decide what to order.
